


The Naming of Things

by Kagutsuchi



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, a pair of monsters making googly-eyes at each other in the heat of battle, spoilers for AoU if you haven't seen the trailers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 01:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3590769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kagutsuchi/pseuds/Kagutsuchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a good long while since Natasha was afraid of the Other Guy. And it's been an equally lengthy while since she thought of him as anyone other than Bruce. In her line of work, names are a form of currency, and his is as precious to her as her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Naming of Things

The beam ripped into her, lancing white hot heat through her thoracic cavity, and she knew she was fucked. Ultron learned from every fight he staged with the Avengers, honing in on any chinks in their armor and making the appropriate adjustments to the arsenal wielded by himself and his drones. They’d been upgraded and she was just the first to find out. It was a bitch being a badass normal sometimes. Natasha hated being outpaced with a passion, and being outgunned was intolerable. It smarted more than the internal bleeding undoubtedly blooming in her rib cage right now. She hadn’t wanted to give Ultron the satisfaction.

Just moments ago, she’d been tearing through a teeming throng of drones, making her way back to the rest of her team. She’d been separated from them by the latest wave of robots but had every intention of making it back in one piece until one of the fuckers had torn into her with god knows what kind of fresh helluva laser beam. Natasha had always known that hers would not be a quiet death, but she had always hoped she wouldn’t have to make the journey alone. She would move slower now, and shock would set in soon.

But for the time being, pain was just another form of energy. Natasha tore into the drones, her shock sticks cutting a deadly swath through the horde of robots. Though she hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of making it to the others at this rate, she could at least put a temporary dent in Ultron’s seemingly endless forces. But something much bigger than herself was suddenly putting a much larger, lasting dent in the squadron of drones that had been closing in on her until its timely arrival.

There had been a time when she might have preferred the Hulk leave her to her fate for fear of a worse fate at his hands, but that time was long gone. Natasha grinned a slasher smile up at him in thanks and camaraderie and continued her weaving and bobbing and smiting until the two of them had opened up a large hole in Ultron’s units. The battlefield swam before her eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying not to faint. She’d lost a great deal of blood. Strong arms swept her up and away from the oncoming third wave and she relented, slipping into unconsciousness.

Natasha awoke with a start to the throaty bellow of the Hulk, who loomed over her prone form with flashing green eyes and clenched fist. He ducked his head and angled it away in a simian gesture of respect that she stopped halfway, clasping his thick jaw with a pale white hand. “Thank you.” He stood stock-still beneath her touch and she wondered absently why it had taken her as long as it did to see Bruce in him.

She knew a monster when she saw one. And this acid green behemoth that scratched the nape of its neck like Bruce and puckered its brow like Bruce and only ever touched her in the small of her back like Bruce was no monster, whatever S.H.I.E.L.D.’s threat watch might say. 

When Natasha had entered the Red Room, she’d made a list of all the things she feared - a list she’d whittled down to the number of fingers on her left hand, with only the trigger finger remaining. Her own southpaw was the fiercest thing she’d ever known, and the mark of a true monster. As a child she’d been forced to write and eat with her right hand, but her handlers encouraged her to strengthen both, and she still favored the left. Russians didn’t like those who stood out, but in combat a devil-handed throttle could win you the day, and monsters needed the devil on their side.

Natasha lifted that hand to her face, noting with a practiced detachment how it trembled. She surveyed their surroundings and realized she had no idea where they were. The building in which they’d taken shelter appeared to be a warehouse dark and dusty from disuse. She pulled herself to her feet and took a tentative breath. The crackling in her chest and the blood in her throat were indicative of a punctured lung, at the very least, and a broken rib or two into the bargain. 

She swayed where she stood and put out a hand to steady herself against a wall that wasn’t there, but Bruce’s arm was. He grimaced when she tried to ease herself into a sitting position amid the rubble. He lifted her bodily and carried her to the warehouse wall, where he lay her on level ground against the flat, smooth stone and crouched at her side. 

“I’m alright.” With shaking fingers, she slipped a small nanite-based capsule out of her utility belt and swallowed it. “It will take about 20 minutes for the nanites to do their work. In the meantime, you need to go help the others.”

He looked down at her, askance, his now dark amber eyes refracting what little light reached them here. She managed a weak smile. “Jemma Simmons designed these nanites; I’m confident they’ll get the job done. You know her work. They’ll reconstruct my ribs and seal the puncture in my lungs and I’ll catch up with you.” She could check her tracking device to locate the others when she was up to it.

But he would not leave her. He settled beside her with surprising delicacy, the only collateral damage a fine white dust that rose from the cinder block floor almost imperceptibly to settle on them both. She sneezed and laughed and cried out from the pain in her ribs and lungs.

There was a mad dog’s sort of panic in his eyes, such that the whites were visible. But he was helpless to save her and he knew it.

“You need to trust me. They need your strength right now more than I do. All  _I_  need is time. Bruce…” she coughed wetly. She’d never been able to call him the Hulk, not even in her head. Hell, she’d hardly been able to retain the appropriate level of professionalism with him after the helicarrier, dropping her “Dr. Banners” after the Battle of New York. He’d been Bruce to her for a long time. She’d been the Widow, the Red Death, the Slavic Shadow…from one monster to another, she preferred to call him by his true name.

“Hulk is Hulk; puny Bruce is puny Bruce,” he corrected her, not ungently. But he stood up to leave.

“…And never the twain shall meet,” she finished, her voice thick with blood. “We know that’s not true. All three of us.” 


End file.
